Monday, March 10, 2008

This Ain't Elizablog

Being the titular character of this here blog, I thought I’d explain the brief background behind the title, “Nevertheless, Elizabeth…” Of course, in my hands it probably won’t be as brief as it should be. I try to apply brevity and conciseness sparingly, and if I’m speaking that way, it’s never a good sign. Anyway. It’s my Blog and I’ll pontificate if I want to.

First off, I asked around for suggestions because naming things is hard, I harbor a deep-seated phobia of cheesiness, and didn’t want the sole responsibility resting on my shoulders. It was a good idea in theory, but it turns out I’m not the only one suffering from blog-naming-block. Here’s a sampling of the suggestions I received, good, bad and otherwise: “Elizabethan Musings”, “Elizabeth Thinks Deep”, “Elizabeth’s Blog” (yup), “Nest of Shells: Elizabeth” (thank you blog name generator, for that gem), “Elizablog”, “Mother ‘hood”, “XO, Elizabeth” and so on.None of those really struck a chord with me. I rested briefly on a couple of them, but not long enough for anything to stick. I like to think of myself as an erudite chick, so I wracked my brain for a literary reference that would somehow fit or a represent the spirit of my thoughts and ramblings. I tried to find some arrangement of “Had we but world enough and time” my favorite phrase from both poetry and literature, but couldn’t find a way to make it relevant, but still, nothing. I suppose I was working backwards. Anyway, this was supposed to be just for fun, but the more difficult it became for me to find something I liked, the more invested I seemed to become. *

Eventually, that approach was abandoned for something simpler. There is a method my mom has of inspiring her children in the creative process… a sort of maternal hybrid of brainstorming and telepathy which is rife with the rejection of perfectly valid ideas… and which nearly always bears fruit, as it did in this case. (Someday I’ll write an entry about this phenomenon.) As I expected, after a relatively short exchange in the aforementioned manner, we had some decent rough ideas that just needed a little refining. At long last (that is at least 2 hours since I decided to set up a blog in the first place) I landed on “Nevertheless,” a succinct homage to a Katherine Hepburn one-liner from “African Queen” delivered with conviction, elegance and defiance the way only she could, and not coincidentally, very similar to my own trademark delivery.

I finally decided to expand a little bit upon my idea in order to convey the secondary meaning that really did seem to represent me. In addition to a subtle nod to that character, and the real women whose independent, rebellious and God-fearing natures she embodied, I felt it also implied that whoever the world thinks I am or whatever it is I am supposed to be, I am nevertheless, Elizabeth.

*For those of you who know me well and are prone to hyper-analysis (you know who you are), let me preemptively say that I do recognize how that sentence can be taken as a broad analogy. You needn’t point it out.